Saturday, June 28, 2014

When God brought Israel out of bondage He could have done anything with them. He could have made them into a nation ruled by warriors like Sparta, presidents like America, tyrants like the surrounding nations, or whatever else we have invented to govern ourselves. He chose a judge. Then, He could have given them anything to have as their national identity, as their single most important thing, and again, He picks law. The first five books are the Law, not the priesthood, not the prophets, the law. And what comes next? The judges. When He wrote the Bible He could have put anything first, but what does He pick? The law, again the law.

God intended that if Israel faithfully read and obeyed the law they would become what they did in Jesus day, a place full of teachers of the law, scribes of the Law, and sects broken up by legal interpretation. Now at first blush people might think that was bad, but it's the non-belief of the pharisee that was the problem, not that he studied the books of Moses too much. What Ezra set in motion was not just the natural consequence of paying attention to the structure of the by design of God, it was a blessing. God gave the law so that men would start thinking in terms of the law. They needed to become law-experts, they must become a nation of
judges because it’s the judge who is most familiar with justice. It’s the judge who can see when a substitute can be suitable. The
people were given Moses as a judge, not a king, because the law was to
teach them that the atonement would be one of law, not mercantile
payment.

In this light it's perfectly understandable. Yes Christ is indeed a King, but that comes after. Christ is a prophet, but not first. It's the law, the law that teaches us that Christ suffered an equivalent penalty, not an exact one, that shows us how He dies as a legal substitute, and how God the Father discharges the debt legally. If we were legal experts we would understand. The first thing is to remember, the law. Atonement through the eyes of the law!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

In light of the recent events unfolding at our church (as
chosen by both the leadership and the congregation), we feel compelled to
worship elsewhere on Sunday mornings. Our problem coincided with the arrival of
Scott, although they were not his fault, nor did he have anything to do with them,
but his hiring brought to light the realization that we had been troubled for
some time by a number of things that are not going away.

The Executive Summary

The Bible commands us to be in subjection to our elders, but
the leadership here doesn’t believe in either the authority or sufficiency of
Scripture, and I can’t in good conscience submit to someone who disbelieves in
such a fashion. If we stay we will be in violation of the Scriptures, which is
a sin, but even if we could stay I still fear we would put our kids at risk for
growing up in a doctrinally soft feel good mega church. That's a big order, so let me explain.

The longer Explanation

A little over a year ago The Bridge of Elk Grove (working title, they have not formally changed the name yet) decided to
move away from any remaining historic Baptist roots and embrace a mega-church
style borrowed from Willow Creek. Surveys became common, classic doctrines and
preferences were replaced by the idea that to grow the church we need to find
out what people want to hear and give it to them. That is, in order to achieve
the leadership’s goal of “moving people closer to Jesus” we need to trade orthodox
Christianity for a kind of moral therapeutic deism. The change has come so
quickly because the leadership has decided the oldest generation, the one that
likes hymns, expects the pastor to be dress in more than a Rick Warren Hawaiian
shirt, and attends the 8:30 service is now neither the future, nor the present
of the church. Their doctrinal and ecclesiastical preferences are seen as
relics of a bygone era, and in ten years will die with them. As a practical
matter the leadership realizes it must replace the generous departing old
saints with larger numbers of younger givers if it is to survive, and it
believes speaking to felt needs is the way to do it. Now while that’s a strong
indictment, I will hasten to add that their bad thinking comes from a good
heart. It’s not because they hate Christ or would deny fundamental truths like
His divinity that they would do this, it’s just that they want to be culturally
relevant and engaging, like Bayside of Granite Bay with its 12,000 attendees on
a Sunday, and to get there you have to attract people by giving them what they
want. Mature doctrines are divisive and keep churches under a certain number;
feelings are unifying and allow a church to grow as big as possible.

This explains why we started preaching from the Story book for
a year (the Story, if you’ll remember, takes away the boring sections of the
NIV text and replaces them with Lucado’s personal thoughts). It’s why we
invited John Jackson and David Harris to the pulpit on a number of Sundays so
they could tell us their feel good, empty calorie stories and jokes while our
executive pastor assured us that “Doubting is good, it’s healthy, and everyone
does it.” It’s why we changed our new believer curriculum to Experiencing
God by Blackaby. It’s why we opened the “helps center” bookcase and manned
it with volunteers, so that if anyone had a problem, we could cry with them and
tell them God isn’t mad, and hand them a life resource. It’s why we re-upped
our partnership with World Vision, an organization run by a member of the
PCA—because what really matters is not beliefs, but the fact that we are out
here to “do something” for God, like stop bullying or bring social justice to
the community. We went big on our coffee ministry. We replaced the sermons with
musicals or dramas on occasion, because who wants to be lectured when you can
experience an interactive presentation of the gospel? We partnered with William
Jessup University to use our campus (their philosophy is that a minister is
better served with an MBA than a M.Div). We changed our purpose from
glorifying God and making people disciples of Christ to “moving people toward
Jesus.” We changed our name from First Baptist Church, because people don’t
like such antiquated titles anymore. It’s why we started to, and why we
continue to do Willow Creek REVEAL surveys. It’s why we were told, “I don’t
care if you don’t like it, God is on the move here.” It's why we brought in David Harris, emergent preacher in the style of Brian McLauren for eight weeks.

The result of which has been a downward spiral for real spiritual maturity. A
year ago we had something in the neighborhood of 5,000 visitors, and 600
something people who identified themselves as “mature or Christ centered
believers,” while this year we had near 8,000 visitors and 400 something people
who identified as mature. Most people don’t take their kids to service with
them. The vast majority don’t do anything more than attend one service. And out
of this we have selected new elders, which is why one of them exhorted us
during a men’s group to “preach the gospel, use words if we have to.”

Now this methodology, and the decisions that have come from
it, was something we were willing to overlook while we didn’t have a senior pastor,
so long as when we did hire someone, he would be a man of God who would
repudiate the silliness. It didn’t matter to us if the elder board didn’t
believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, as long as the senior pastor who drove
the vision would. Is this sloppy thinking on our part? Shouldn’t we have
recognized that the church already is
a seeker sensitive mega-church? Shouldn’t we have realized that the elders had
consolidated power in the absence of a senior pastor and things weren’t going
back to the way it was before? Perhaps.

But it’s into this background that Scott Hansen comes, and his
appearance was from the beginning problematic for us. He literally walked away
from his church without telling them, and the reason for moving doing so was,
“God called him, and he needed to be faithful,” which is either soft headed
thinking, a violation of the third commandment, or more likely, just a
non-answer. When asked how he would win the millennial generation he said,
“through the use of technology.” When giving the alter call he summarized
salvation as “God votes for you, Satan votes against, and you cast the deciding
vote.” He told us we needed to become more seeker sensitive, that we needed to
learn to speak the language of the world around us, if we wanted to win souls
to Christ. Before he writes his sermon he asks himself, “What is the
congregation struggling with, and what do they need to hear this week?” His
sermon on John 3 was how we can reach men like Nicodemus by making them
comfortable. And the leadership loved him. His style blended swimmingly with
theirs because he worked through the same set of first principles they did. We
decided it was extremely unlikely he would even attempt to swim against the mega-church
current. I’m not saying he’s not orthodox, because he is. Nor am I saying he
won’t make the Bible a part of his sermons, because he will. The Bridge Elk
Grove might well experience great numerical growth under his watch, but
fundamentally he agrees with the current leadership regarding both the
sufficiency and the authority of Scriptures and that’s unacceptable.

I don’t expect our decision to be popular, or, for that matter,
to have any of our friends agree with it. At the members meeting there was a tremendous
backlash against the elders when they tried to change our constitution to give themselves
more power and the postmodern growth philosophy full reign, but the few
remaining dissenters are outmaneuvered. They’re holding onto hope in thinking
Scott is going to be on their side, on the side of tradition, but he’s not,
he’s pro-contextualization. But even if we are ostracized from our friends due
to their anger (which I hope isn’t the case) the fact remains that the driving
philosophy behind all of these decisions is expressly forbidden by
the Scriptures, and represents a denial of other key doctrines of salvation. The
church has now fully committed to growing using a method other than fidelity to
the Bible. It grieves me to leave but the simple truth is I don’t want to
attend Bayside of Granite Bay. I don’t like Saddleback Church. I don’t want to
fill out surveys during a Willow Creek service. I want my hymns and my children
to hear the full gospel message, the word of God unpacked faithfully every
week. Not what someone else thinks they should hear, what God has chosen to
say. Insofar as I am able, I must be faithful to Scripture. I know there are
still churches out there that operate by faith in the foolishness of God, even
if The Bridge of Elk Grove isn’t
going to be one of them. So we must go in search of higher ground, lest we be
swept away by the storm.

It’s one thing to point out the clinical problems that come
with having your church blighted, it’s quite another to live
through it. Reading Exodus 23:2 is easy (Thou
shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither
shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrestjudgment) but standing up to
society is decidedly hard. Watching my large church, to whom I entrust the
souls of myself and my kids, turn into a Willow Creek church has been beyond exceedingly
difficult. I mean, not just hard but really,
really hard, sleepless nights of doubting myself, debating myself, and
kicking myself in abundance hard. Because I’ve been alone in it.

Mentioning my
concerns to others only results in them looking at me like I have two heads,
“Why do you care so much? Why do you make such a big deal about nothing? This
place is great! The preaching is awesome! Don’t you see the work we’re doing for the kingdom?” And I do see
it, and it’s not all without question bad. But my heart has sunk very low when I have seen my
friends blighted into skipping church altogether in order to go to run races,
attend ballgames.

The staff are no relief, in fact they are worse off than the
blighted members since they are fully vested in the executive pastor (because otherwise they lose their jobs). I don’t judge them, they need to feed their children
the same as I, and this is how they earn their bread, rather, I love them. They
are wonderful people. But since I can neither condemn them for succumbing to
the blight, nor admit it’s acceptable, I am left alone. And the blight whispers
to me as well. “It’s not too late to go back. Go inside and believe it, put to
death that part of you that is crying out.” I want it to be true that it’s
harmless and acceptable, that if I lay down and sleep it wouldn’t corrode my
soul. But I can’t, because two things have kept me half awake during the spell,
like Puddleglum the marsh wiggle in the depths of the earth: AWANA and
Alistair. The leaders at AWANA invited me to teach the junior kids for a year
and they were very happy with my Scripture centric approach that challenged
them to pursue the glory of God. I pulled no punches and taught them as adults,
and was just sure the things I was saying would get me booted because it was the
complete opposite of Sunday mornings, but it never happened. That encouraged
me. The other thing was Truth for Life. The biblical preaching I get there has
fed me enough to keep me from passing out.

So I sit alone by the river, unable to sing King Alphas song,
groaning as the heavy wheels of providence turn over me. His sovereign hand has
sorely pursued His servant to keep him from resting, and the pleas go
unheard. The upraised hands are not seen, rather, He has increased my
affliction, and multiplied to me sorrows. Well can I say with the Scriptures, it is not good for man to be alone. I cry
with the Psalmist, have mercy upon me, O
LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed. My soul is also
sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long? And again, How
long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? Forever? Oh, we see not our signs! There is no longer any prophet! neither is there
among us any that knoweth. Alas that these evil days have come upon me.

But as Doug Wilson says, I hear in the hard snowy highlands
the bagpipes of God’s sovereignty demanding I count it as joy, which comes with
the morning. And even as some of the blighted poets have said, I take comfort
in that “God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life.”

I affirm the majority of it as faithfully representing the Biblical position, but there are some points that I have a point to make, or problems with. They are listed below:

1:8 - The
Old Testament in Hebrew …
But because these original tongues are not known to all the people of God who
have a right to, and an interest in the Scriptures, and who are commanded to
read and search them in the fear of God, the Scriptures are therefore to be
translated into the ordinary language of every nation into which they come,
so that, with the Word of God living richly in all, people may worship God in
an acceptable manner, and through patience and comfort of the Scriptures may
have hope.

A small amount of the Scriptures
were written in Aramaic, and I believe the same properties hold to those
sections as well.
I think it’s also important to add that Jesus used the LXX, giving us both an
example and the right to translations.

7:2 - Moreover,
as man had brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased
the Lord to make a covenant of grace.

My problem here is twofold.
First I don’t believe that “as man had
brought himself” God then, at
that time, decided to then act through the use of grace, which is what the
confession implies. God is not reactive, therefore it was at the fall God revealed
His plan, not made it.
Second, I reject the term “covenant of
grace” which was a popular idea in theology at the time of the WCF, set opposed
to the “covenant of works” as the overarching plans of salvation. I find the
notion of “dispensation for the fullness of time” or “kingdom” to be far superior
in bringing clarity to the singular overarching plan of salvation. It’s my
belief that the covenants in the OT point forward to the pardon found in
Christ, while the NT points back to it. Calling it ‘covenant of grace’ obscures
the centrality of Christ more than I am comfortable with and elevates works to
a place in salvation where they do not belong.

7:3 - The covenant of salvation
rests upon an eternal covenant transaction between the Father and the Son
about the redemption of the elect.

I do not believe
Jesus made a covenantal transaction with the Father that left out the Holy
Spirit. If no more than ‘agreement’ between the persons of the Godhead is
indicated then I concur, but I think the word covenant here is sloppy, and ought to be better guarded. Ultimately
I find no basis for the “covenant of redemption” in the Scriptures which seems to
underpin this statement, which is why I preferring a familial model of
redemption instead.

8:5 - The
Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself which He, through
the eternal Spirit, once offered up to God, has fully satisfied the justice of
God, has procured reconciliation, and has purchased an everlasting
inheritance in the kingdom of Heaven for all those whom the Father has
given to Him.

While I do recognize the Bible uses
the words such as purchase and redemption as an analogy to understand Christ’s
work, I do not like the particular choice of it here in the confession, because
in this context it’s suggesting a pecuniary model in which Jesus discharges the
debt of the elect upon His death. I hold to a judicial pardoning, upon which God
grants forgiveness on condition of faith. The model I see in the Scriptures is
that Jesus secures eternal life for the elect, by His death, by obtaining a
full and sufficient judicial pardon for each and every man, by becoming sin
itself, and imputing righteousness itself, not by paying for a limited or
certain number of sins.

19:6 -
Although true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works, to
be justified or condemned by it, yet it is of great use to them as well as to
others, because as a rule of life it informs them of the will of God and their
duty and directs and binds them to walk accordingly.

I do not believe in a covenant of
works, but rather hold to God putting His image in us at creation, and filling
us with a conscience, which then creates a demand to be perfect, just as God
is. This section of the confession works better with the phrase removed.

20:1 - The covenant of works being broken by sin, and made unprofitable for
life, God was pleased to promise Christ, the seed of the woman, as the means of
calling the elect and bringing to life within them faith and repentance.

This is the only part of the Confession
which I will have absolutely none of.

1.God graciously chose to make for Himself a son,
and put him in the garden with creation under his feet, which means that the whole
of creation is by grace, not by works. God’s command is not therefore a
covenant, but an instruction, the way by which Adam could be obedient to God,
since Adam was already God’s son, His vice-regent, His friend whom He walked
with in the evenings. Therefore, since Adam already experienced every good
thing of being with God there is no room for him to be earning additional bonus
blessings through works of the law.

2.The Covenant of Works inevitably leads to the
idea of a probationary period wherein Adam would merit eternal life by being
obedient for a limited amount of time, after which God would change him such
that he became incapable of sin. But this is complete speculation in an attempt
to cover over a perceived injustice in God. The text nowhere even implies
anything like it; it’s fabrication on the order of the gap theory or
dispensationalism.

3.Nowhere in the Scriptures is a Covenant of Works
ever mentioned. The closest it gets is Romans 2, but the simpler explanation of
faithful holiness to God is a better fit regarding salvation. Genesis doesn’t
even use the word Covenant until chapter 6, and I believe God deliberately
waited until after the fall to give us the word for a reason.

4.This statement makes it look like God had to
change course; His primary plan of saving people by their own good works fell
through so He had to come up with a backup plan to restore it to good working
order, so He sent Jesus to fix the breach in the wall. In this instance Jesus
becomes subordinate to salvation by good works, being the one who keeps the law
and fulfills it for us. I find this implication unacceptable.

5.Contrary to the assertion that the covenant of
Works was always God’s plan Romans 11 is explicit that the fall was always Gods
plan from the very beginning. The fallenness of all mankind was necessarily
foreordained by God for the manifestation of His attributes (ie: His Glory). Jesus was plan A, not plan B.

6.It allows people to think Christ’s righteousness
is dependent on the law. Christ is not righteous because He simply is, He is
righteous because He keeps the law. But Scriptures speak of the law as bringing
us to knowledge of our need for our savior, not the grounds by which we may
have eternal life.

22:8 - The Sabbath is kept holy to the Lord by those who,
after the necessary preparation of their hearts and prior arranging of their
common affairs, observe all day a holy rest from their own works, words and
thoughts about their worldly employment and recreations, and give
themselves over to the public and private acts of worship for the whole time,
and to carrying out duties of necessity and mercy.

I do not find all recreational
activities worthy of abstaining from on Sunday, only some. Also, given that the
NT does not reaffirm the Sabbath but rather explicitly states we are not under
it, in my house do not use the language of the Sabbath, since that was the day
Jesus rested in the tomb; we use the phrase, The Lords Day.

25:2 -Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife, for the increase
of mankind with a legitimate issue, and the preventing of uncleanness.

In my estimation the confession is also lacking the
important point that Marriage is a figure of Christ and the church.

29:4 -Immersion,
or dipping of the person in water, is necessary to the due
administration of this ordinance.

I
do not see this in Scripture. I think it’s the fitting and proper form, but I
would not agree to the notion that if the immersion is not full then the Sacrament
is not valid. I am not myself a padeo, but I find their argument about the Holy
Spirit descending on Jesus “as He was
coming up out of the water” to mean “asHe waswalking up the shore out of the water” a plausible one.

30: 4 - The denial of the cup to the
people, worshipping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them
about for adoration, and reserving them for any pretended religious use,
are all contrary to the nature of this ordinance, and to the institution of
Christ.

I agree with the statement in full,
and this is a completely unserious objection, but the Scriptures do say, “This cup is the new testament in My
blood which is shed for you"...

Saturday, June 7, 2014

What seems to be more and more a trend is for a church to
remove the words which cause a culture to stumble and avoid our doors. We might
for example take the word itself, church,
from the name and replace it with fellowship.
The reason being that church is
an offensive word, conjuring up all kinds of stodgy, stiff collared, uptight
men in suits who are likely to point fingers and use the word hellfire. That goes double for the word Baptist—that most hated of titles. Just
take that judgmental oldster and make him fat, undisciplined, and screaming
about the evils of abortion and you have the impression Baptist brings to the table.

That’s why it was the first to go. Rick Warren started out
as a Southern Baptist, and as a
consequence dropped the title in favor of something better, like Saddleback. Willow Creek is a good alternative too. But those trendsetters of
yesteryear are themselves behind the times, since those places still have the
word church in them. We might do
better to update church to fellowship, but there’s a problem with
that too, which is why the more clever thinkers among us have seen down this
particular path and realize that fellowship
also needs to go. A good title for the building where Apprentices of the Messiah meet should be attractive, like The Bridge. Can’t you see your Christ
following self inviting your friends to The
Bridge?

You know what, it’s time we face it, church is offensive. The title implies we are the called out ones,
unique, separate, divisible from the other part of mankind, and if that makes
people squirm I don’t know what to tell you. Because, that’s what we are. Let
it offend.

Wait a minute, what am I saying? Offend? *Ahem.* Good riddance to that
which offends and everything like it. Hand me my latte, sacred-coffee-barista,
the children’s musical number is starting, and it promises to be relevant and engaging. No wait, let me fill out
the survey on how this morning has been making me feel so far first. If I can
just find which pocket of my swim trunks I put it in…